Witness provides details of Chandler's final hours

HOLLAND -- After Janet Chandler allegedly slept with Chery Ruiz's boyfriend, Ruiz had good reason to be upset with Chandler, the Blue Mill Inn's young night clerk.

But Ruiz, an inn maid in early 1979, still considered Chandler a friend and "couldn't believe" the gang-rape and torture she said she witnessed as several Wackenhut guards assaulted Chandler at a party.

Ruiz, an alleged eyewitness to Chandler's rape at a corporation guest house on Lake Macatawa, today provided perhaps the most graphic and disturbing testimony yet about Chandler's final hours.

In fact, the testimony left Chandler's mother, Glenna, in tears outside the courtroom after a break in the proceedings. Family members escorted her out of the courthouse this afternoon, and she did not return for the rest of the day.

Ruiz's testimony, however, came under heavy scrutiny by defense attorneys who found numerous inconsistencies with earlier statements she gave police. They also grilled her over claims that all four defendants -- Arthur "Carl" Paiva, Freddie Parker, Anthony Williams and James "Bubba" Nelson -- had individually threatened her life if she didn't keep quiet.

Ruiz seemed confused under that questioning and was unable to recall even basic timeframes for events. She repeatedly asked for attorneys to rephrase the question and sometimes mumbled indecipherably in the microphone.

Ruiz testified she knew Laurie Swank, a supervisor at the inn, and several guards had planned to get back at Chandler because they were angry over her numerous sexual relationships with guards.

"I didn't think it was going to be this rough. I didn't think they were going to go to this extreme," Ruiz testified, recalling how she witnessed a bound Chandler repeatedly raped and beaten as her assailants pulled up on a belt around her neck and on her hair.

Ruiz said she saw someone pour hot wax on Chandler's back and others pour alcohol down her throat.

She was among three witnesses to testify today in the Chandler murder trial. All four defendants were Wackenhut security guards patrolling a strike at the Chemetron Corp., with all but Paiva, a guard supervisor, staying at the Blue Mill Inn.

Ruiz identified all four defendants, as well as others, as raping Chandler.

She recalled seeing Chandler being assaulted in a room and hearing people say "(swear word) her to death."

While Chandler and Paiva once dated, their relationship had soured in the month before the party and Paiva was angry Chandler was having sexual relationships with other guards.

"I heard Carl several times say to Janet, 'I'm going to get you back you (swear word) and you're going to die,' " Ruiz testified.

Paiva, Swank and others planned a party where they would teach her a lesson, testimony showed. She recalled how Paiva even planned which order the guards would have forced sex with Janet, with him being first.

"He would say, 'You're next and you can go after that,' " she testified.

At the party, Ruiz said she remembered hearing someone yell "Janet's dead," before witnessing guards in a bathroom trying to clean the body.

She kept quiet for 27 years under alleged death threats. Her family also urged her not to get involved.

"Tony, Bubba and Carl told me not to ever say one word to anyone or I would end up just like Janet Chandler," she testified.

Defense attorneys suggested several of her statements did not make sense, including one where she said the defendants each came by her house in cars even years after the death to warn her about keeping quiet.

She also testified she never saw Robert Lynch, another guard already convicted in the murder, rape Chandler or pull the belt around her neck. Lynch has confessed Chandler died while he was choking her.

Ruiz also denied today she kept quiet out of fear she might be charged, but admitted that to police in a 2006 interview.

Others to testify today were Patty Ward, a Chemetron worker who dated Paiva and was at the party, and Glenn Johnson, a Wackenhut guard also at the party who witnessed a commotion.

Johnson hinted at the problematic relationship between Paiva and Chandler.

"Janet and Carl had fairly well broken up, they were hating each other, Carl more than Janet. The guards knew something was going to happen," he said.